


steal a few breaths from the world

by rainbowsmitten



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Eliot Julia & Alice are the dream team & Q's knight(s) in shining armor, Fix-It, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 21:19:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowsmitten/pseuds/rainbowsmitten
Summary: Quentin regrets. Penny breaks the rules.





	steal a few breaths from the world

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that I very much consider Q's death in the finale to be a suicide (because you cannot have your mentally ill suicidal character who spent the season traumatized & depressed sacrifice himself & tell me it wasn't a suicide, okay?) & it's treated with a lot less ambiguity here than in the show, as well as direct (but non-graphic) references to past suicide attempts. 
> 
> This is also canon divergent in that, instead of getting back together, Q & Alice had a 'I want you in my life but we're better off as friends' convo. (Sidenote: I cannot believe the writers want me to believe Alice would just give up on Q after they showed us Alice 23 & all she did to get him back. Like, whatever your feelings on Qualice, that's bullshit. I don't think Julia or Eliot would either, but with Alice we have proof she would do anything so it's just mind-blowing to me). 
> 
> Title from 'Me and My Husband' by Mitski (which isn't super relevant to this fic outside of a few lyrics but gives me Queliot vibes every time I listen to it, just, 'And at least in this lifetime / We're sticking together /Me and my husband / We're sticking together,' makes me feel Things.)
> 
> Anyway, fuck the finale, amirite?

"Did I do something brave to save my friends? Or did I finally find a way to kill myself?" Quentin asks, his throat tight and his voice unsteady, and Penny stares down at him with kind eyes.

Of everything that is freaking him out right now, Penny (Penny 40, _their_ Penny) being nice, _sweet_ even, shouldn’t be at the top of the list, and yet.

(The Penny he remembers had little to no patience for him. Cared about him, in his own weird reluctant way, just as Quentin cared about him, but they never liked each other, were never _nice_ to each other. _Best frenemies,_ Margo once called them, mocking and saccharine as they both scowled.

Honestly, he thinks that Penny, scowling and sullen, would be more comforting than this strange, serene, _sweet_ version of Penny. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the kindness, but it’s unnerving.)

As Penny tries to show him that his life and his death had meaning, how he had changed everyone’s lives, Quentin tries to believe that this was the right choice. There’s not much he can do about it if it's not anyway. 

But he can’t shake it, this uncertainty weighing him down and denying him closure. That he could’ve ran and saved himself, instead of not moving at all, allowing himself to be evaporated and turned to nothing. Penny can reassure him, he can reassure himself, that it was a choice made for the right reasons, but he thinks that maybe he didn’t even  _have_ to make that choice.

And he wasn’t scared, like he has been so many times before at the threat of death. He felt like he did with the Monster’s hands around his neck, like he did when he was nineteen and on the roof of the tallest building he could find, like he did when he was sixteen with a notebook full of suicide notes. Resigned. Tired. Hollow.

Like he’s felt the last few months, with Eliot gone and his love for Alice turned sour from distrust and all hope dwindling.

The hope came back with two axes named Sorrow wielded by heroic exiled High King, reconciliation and a promise of friendship with Alice, Eliot bleeding out but alive, smiling pained but fond up at him and Margo and squeezing his hand weakly as they rushed him to Professor Lipson.

Hope came back, but not to him. It didn’t fill the hollow space that the despair of the last few months had carved out in his chest. It should’ve, but it didn’t, because hopelessness, for him, was never just a lack of hope, but a tangible force in itself. The monster that never leaves him. Weakened, having spent months chain-smoking and not sleeping, he wasn’t able to shake it.

He hadn’t even realised that it had gotten his claws in him again. Not until now. Not until too late.

He tries to ignore the pit of regret in his stomach.

Back in the monochrome room (and an idle bit of his brain thinks, _Wow, this is cliche, they could’ve at least had some color,_ while the rest of him has an existential crisis), they stand before a doorway and Penny presses a MetroCard into his hand.

Quentin looks down at it and then back up to meet Penny’s level stare.

“Kinda wish I got the memo that death was not all it’s cracked up to be before I gave it a go,” he says, feeble and laughing weakly, wiping at his eyes.

Penny laughs humorlessly, looking briefly like himself, and, smiling wryly, mutters, “Yeah, me too.”

“How this for dramatic irony?” he admits, because this is the time, his last chance, for confession and he figures since Penny’s apparently his personal afterlife therapist, he should probably say it out loud. He shouldn’t regret the sacrifice he made to save his friends and the world, but he does, especially now, with the benefit of distance, he realises that it was a sacrifice that didn’t have to made. “I spend my whole life wanting to die and when I do, I realise just how much I want to _live_.”

And he does, he wants to live. Wants to see his friends again, finish school, meet his godson (and help Poppy out with that, because _God_ , the thought of Poppy as a single mom terrifies him), see if any of the Coldwater-Waugh family still remains (and if they even existed at all, in this timeline and not just in his memory; he’s theorised that the timelines converged and combined, that’s why they still have their memories, but he knows it’s probably wishful thinking. But he hopes he’s right, he really does, because some things are fuzzy about that life, but Teddy isn’t. He can remember the day he was born and his first day of school and him leaving home and the day of his wedding. He can remember his grandkids, little Margo and Ellie and— fuck, he had a _family_ and he has tried so hard not to think about them since that day with Eliot, but they were real and they were his, after twenty odd years of thinking a happy family, a happy _life_ , was impossible for someone like him).

He wants to live a life, a real life and not the resemblance of one that he’s lived the past few months, barely a person and more of a ghost made corporal through sheer desperate force of will. He wants to _live_.

Penny scowls, abrupt and so familiar it aches, and says, “Fuck, Coldwater, why’d you always gotta make things difficult?”

“What?”

Penny runs a hand through his hair, frustrated, and it’s like seeing an actor drop their role after the camera stop rolling. Quentin can’t help smile, even confused and conflicted with tears down in face, and thinks, _Huh, there you are._

“I shouldn’t do this,” Penny tells him and seems pissed, though Quentin doesn’t know who at. “I have orders—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Quentin asks, not angrily but thrown off by the change in the tone of their conversation, and it feels weird going from vulnerability to borderline hostility so quick, but Quentin really doesn't know what's going on anymore.

Penny huffs. “The higher-ups want you gone. Usually to get a MetroCard and move to the other side, you have to, you know, confess all your sins. All of them. And that’s after waiting in the Underground for decades. But they told me to fast-track that and get you gone.”

“But why—”

“Because you killed two gods, were an accomplice to the murder of four others, worked with the goddamn Monster and have been a fugitive from the Library for the past year, Quentin!”

“Well,” Quentin says, “when you put it like that.”

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, as far as they’re concerned,” he says and Quentin feels a little flattered, though he’s sure he shouldn’t be. “Damnit, I have orders—”

“Okay, that’s fine, I’m not holding that against you,” Quentin tells him, bewildered. Penny fixes him with an exasperated glare and sighs deeply.

“For fuck’s sake, Coldwater,” he murmurs, grabs him by the arm and the setting around them once again shifts.

“Um, what—”

“Just! Shut up, for once, and listen,” Penny commands; Quentin takes it back, asshole Penny is not more comforting.

(Quentin desperately tries to ignore the dawning realisation of just how much he missed this asshole.)

They’re at the Cottage, eerily quiet and desolate except for three people—Julia, Eliot and Alice, sitting on various surfaces around the living room and in different clothes than at his memorial, so this must be a different day. They sit in silence, the girls with cocktails in their hands and Eliot busying himself with making more.

Alice cuts through it and, as always, doesn’t beat around the bush. “So. Ideas?”

“Well, I was thinking about golems; if we could get him back from the Underworld, we can bind his spirit to it, right?” Eliot says, not looking up from whatever new convocation he’s making.

“Oh,” Quentin says softly.

There are a dozen untouched glasses placed on tables around them. Quentin thinks about Eliot after he lost Mike and is grateful that this is the coping mechanism he’s chosen this time. He looks— tired, Quentin realises with a pang, exhausted, darker circles around his eyes than when the Monster inhabited him and that’s saying something, because the Monster thought sleep was boring and only did it when he was in danger of passing out.

Quentin tries to quiet the longing in his heart. Eliot doesn’t want him, not in this timeline, he knows this, but it doesn’t matter; he wants his arms around him and his chin resting on the top of his head. Quentin never pressed Eliot when he turned him down, told him he wouldn’t have chosen him if he had the choice, because, while he loved him so deep it ached, Quentin wanted Eliot in his life in any capacity. Even when there was nothing between them but a drunken mistake and a few lingering looks, Eliot had given him so much affection he could’ve drowned in it, tactile touches and gentle looks and embraces he wanted to live in. He wanted to be someone Eliot loves, even if it’s not in the same way Quentin loves him. He would take anything he could get.

Quentin could try to quiet the longing in his heart as much as he liked, but he never was all that good at repression. He felt and felt and felt, loud and big and impossible to ignore. Yearning and sorrow filled his heart and overflowed. It was who he was; nothing he felt had ever been quiet. Now was no exception, even when he had no physical body and thus no real heart to speak of.

Alice points the pen in her hand at Elliot approvingly, a silent gesture of consideration, and writes something in the journal resting on her lap. Quentin looks closer at it; she’s several pages in, her writing messy and scribbled like it’s always been when she gets ideas and she wants them down on paper before they leave her head, and it’s all ways to get him back.

“ _Oh_ ,” Quentin says again, distantly realising his cheek are wet again. A journal for saving him. He was never that organised when he was trying to save her and he can’t help but laugh, even though it’s weak through the tears, because it's so _Alice_. 

“Yeah,” Penny laughs gently, affection clear in the sound. “They were never gonna let it go. Let _you_ go. Not without a fight.”

“Kady didn’t with you,” Quentin says and pretends to not hear the hitch of breath and shaky sigh that Penny lets out at that.

Jules, cross-legged in an armchair, says, “How do we even know he’s in the Underworld? He was in the Mirror World when he died. And you said he evaporated, so God knows what actually happened to him. How can we get him back if we don’t even know where we’re getting him back _from_?”

She’s playing Devil’s advocate, even though there’s that dark, intense focus in her eyes and a stubborn set to her jaw. The look she gets when she’s set her mind to something and Quentin knows that she’ll stop at nothing. It makes his chest ache and Quentin wants to reach out for her, wishes desperately that he could hug her one last time.

“We’ll figure it out, we always do,” Eliot says, blase and sipping at something fruity, but there’s a sharp edge to his tone. He thinks Julia’s suggesting to give up on him, Quentin realises, recognising the defensive way his shoulders have tensed and the grimace forming at the side of his mouth.

“Do we?” Alice says wryly, not looking up from her journal, but sounds confident as she carries on, “But no, you’re right, we will. I studied the Mirror World as a Niffin, we can figure out if Q’s still there or if he’s somewhere else. I’m not thrilled about going back there, but if you feel like we need to eliminate that as an option…”

Julia hums. “But what if—”

Elliot makes a furious noise and turns on her. Quentin knows Alice and Julia, knows they work well with someone to challenge and bounce ideas off of, and Julia’s falling into the role of countering Alice so they can cover all their bases. Quentin knows this, can tell looking from the outside in, but Eliot is tired, irritable and on edge. To him, it probably just sounds like negativity, negativity he likely has heard from other people less stubborn and devoted to saving Quentin.

So it’s not entirely surprising when he snarls, “We are not giving up on him, okay, we’re _not_. He never once gave up on us, any of us, not even when it was the sensible thing to do. We have to do the same for him.”

Julia’s eyes flash, something furious and defensive there, but, looking at Eliot’s face, it fades, her face softening in understanding. “That’s not what we’re doing; we’re not giving up. We’re not. C’mon, this is Q we’re talking about, do you really think I would just let—”

She breaks off and looks away, taking a deep breath. All the tension in Eliot disappears and he echoes her sigh, sinking deeper into the couch and taking a longer drink from his cocktail.

“I’m just,” Julia says after a few seconds, “I’m just throwing stuff out there. We need to look at all the possibilities and options, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eliot repeats, “I know, I’m—I’m sorry, I just—“

“I know,” Julia reassures him, reaching over to pat his free hand. Eliot smiles, half-hearted but grateful, and picks up another cocktail to hand her. She huffs a quiet laugh, but accepts it anyway. “We’ll get your boy back, don’t worry.”

Quentin and Eliot both make an involuntary noise of shock. _Your boy,_ Quentin thinks, rolling it about in his head, thrown off but pleased. Penny snorts beside him, exasperated, but Quentin ignores him.

“Not _my_ boy, I kinda fucked that one up,” Eliot says, his mouth twisting into something torn between a smile and a grimace. “But thanks, Jules.”

“Not your boy _yet_ ,” Alice says from the corner, and Quentin startles, turning to look at her. She looks mildly uncomfortable, but not angry or upset, and there’s a tiny, teasing smirk on her face. Quentin feels an overwhelming rush of love and affection for all of them, even as he grows increasingly bewildered. “You’ll get your second chance, Waugh.”

Quentin swallows, tries to steady himself. He’s shaking and it’s difficult to stop crying, to swallow past the tightness in his throat. He’s spent so long feeling numb that the sudden rush of emotion isn’t surprising, even though it's overwhelming; he's experienced it before, a stretch of nothingness followed by feeling too much too fast. Quentin’s just a little annoyed that his mind is still fucked up and his body is still impossible to get control over even when he’s dead and doesn’t physically exist. You’d think he’d be able to stop crying, but _no,_ apparently not.

The words echo again and again in his mind: _Your boy..._ _I kinda fucked that one up..._ _You’ll get your second chance._

_Peaches and plums, motherfucker._

Fuck. Fuck, he does want him. Quentin _should've_ pushed him, instead of accepting that after fifty _goddamn_ years with a home and a family, waking up beside each other and making it work together, that he wouldn't chose him, that he doesn't love him, that they wouldn't work together. Quentin was so scared of losing him that he stayed silent, didn't want to lose what he did have. He should've known better, after fifty fucking years he should've known that Eliot, beautiful and self-hating and loving and infuriating _Eliot,_ was full of shit, especially when he felt something that frightened him or made him vulnerable. 

He should’ve stayed. He should’ve stayed outside Eliot’s hospital room and then beside his bed with Margo. He should’ve let someone else go to Mirror World, they didn’t need it to be him, he didn't need to play the hero. He should’ve been there when Eliot woke up. He should’ve—

“Why are you showing me this?” Quentin asks, turning to face Penny, because while showing him his memorial was a good way at pushing him towards acceptance, showing him this is sending him a dozen steps back. Penny showed him his friends loved him but would be okay without him; now he’s showing him that his friends love him and refuse to be without him. There's no way he can move on now.

“You’re a dumbass,” Penny says matter-of-factly and Quentin makes an affronted noise but doesn’t protest. “Look, I’m meant to send you through to the other side. These stubborn idiots won’t be able to get to you there. But if you stay in the Meadows…”

“They can find me,” Quentin concludes. “But is that an option? You said—”

“Yeah, I know what I said,” Penny cuts through, “but it’s not the only option. It’s the only _sensible_ option, but not the only one.”

“I’m not sure anyone would describe any of us as sensible,” Quentin says. “But you’d... get in trouble, though. If you let me stay.”

“Well, I always did have a bit of a problem with authority,” Penny says blithely, shrugging a shoulder dismissively, as if he isn’t looking at everything he’s built for himself here and putting it at risk for Quentin, of all people.

Quentin laughs, a touch hysterical. “You’re wearing a _suit_.”

“Hey, fuck you, I look great,” Penny says and then, a little despairingly, “I’m in a book club.”

“Oh my God,” Quentin says, trying to imagine it. He can’t.

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Penny says with a great deal of feeling, like he’s been waiting for the chance to complain, even just a little.

He sobers up suddenly and holds out a hand. Quentin takes one last lingering look at the three most important people in his life, probably for the last time in a while but hopefully not for the last time entirely, and takes his hand.

Back in the dark room again, Penny says, “Look, I’m gonna be real with you here: I didn’t get a second chance. Me and Kady didn’t get a second chance. I had an opportunity, once, and I didn’t take it; sometimes I regret that. Sometimes I don’t. But you… The Library doesn’t own your soul like they own mine. Your place, right now? Isn’t here. You still got a lot more life to live, Quentin Makepeace Coldwater.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Also I cannot believe your middle name is Makepeace, that is just… hilariously bad. You’re so lucky I never found that out when I was alive, I would’ve given you so much shit.”

“Unlike now, where you're being so gracious about it,” Quentin says dryly, ducking his head and waits for Penny’s laughter to fade out before saying, “You did too. Have a lot more life to live, I mean. I’m sorry we didn’t fight for you harder.”

Penny’s smile fades slowly into something more solemn and he sighs through his nose. “Not much that could be done. It was too late for me. It’s not for you. So, if you wanna take your MetroCard and move along, then that’s your choice but. It’s not your only one.”

“If I took that choice, those three would find a way to resurrect me just to kill me again for being a dumbass,” Quentin says, only half-joking. “No, I’m not giving up on life. Not this time.”

“I’m not gonna say that’s the right choice, because it’s your life or afterlife or whatever,” Penny says, “But: right choice.”

 

The Underground Meadows are just as depressing as Quentin remembers it being, like an airport but for people with no tickets and most of the planes are delayed anyway. While Penny ushers him through, Quentin does his best to not look suspicious, even though no-one seems to give him any attention.

Quentin, when given the choice of where in the Underworld Meadows to go, asks to go to where Julia’s friends still reside. He doesn’t really want to go back to the bowling alley, but he doesn’t want to be in a place where he doesn’t know anyone and he’s pretty sure they’ll want an update on Julia and everything that’s happened since their last visit. And while he’s waiting, he figures helping Richard find his son will give him something to do. Quentin knows he was important to Julia and, since Jules spent so long helping someone who's important to Quentin, he wants to repay her for that.

He hadn’t expected Penny to say yes when he asked if they were still there, but apparently waiting in the Underground takes a while; Quentin skipped that process due to the powers that be wanting to get rid of him. Quentin, again, feels sort of flattered by that. He knows that he's more of a pest than a threat, but still. Enough of pest that they consider him important enough to get out the picture. 

“What about your dad?” Penny questions.

Quentin shakes his head, “I can’t let him know I’m dead and then leave him again, that’s… cruel. And I’m still, you know, young, so he’ll jump to the worse possible conclusion and I won’t even be able to tell him he’s wrong, because I’m not even really sure myself and I just… No, I can’t do that to him. I, maybe—could I ask—if you can’t, it’s fine, you’ve already done so much, but… could you give him my MetroCard?”

Penny’s face softens.

“Yeah, I can do that. You know, if anything, it might help ease suspicions. No MetroCard and no Coldwater, they might figure the paperwork is wrong about the name. Get them off your scent. Also, remember, your name’s Brian Jones. You’ve never heard of Quentin Coldwater in your life, okay? Okay.”

“Thank you, Penny,” Quentin says sincerely, “You are... a very good ‘benevolent Grim Reaper.’ Not something I thought I’d ever say, but.”

“I’m as surprised as you are,” he responds, “And technically, I’m a very _shitty_ Grim Reaper, since I’m helping you. So. This is all I can do though, I’m lucky if they don’t find out about this.”

“Is there anything I can do? To help them, I mean, I feel… weird, just waiting around.”

Penny grins, crooked and a little mocking.

“You’re not the hero of this story, Coldwater. You’re the damsel in distress. Wait for your rescue and have fun bowling, bro.”

“Yeah, well, have fun with your book club,” Quentin replies, rolling his eyes, and then, after a moment of internal debate, surges forward to hug him.

To his surprise, Penny doesn’t push him away, but hugs him back, patting him on the back. Even more surprisingly, it’s not awkward. Maybe the nice act wasn’t such an act at all, Quentin thinks; Penny’s still the same old sarcastic asshole under the suit, but he’s kinder now, in a way he was never openly before. Genuine, too. Quentin can’t help the pang of guilt that he gets a second chance at life and Penny doesn’t. _I had an opportunity, once, and I didn’t take it,_ he’d said and Quentin knows he’ll always be grateful for the opportunity Penny’s given to him. He won’t take it for granted. 

“I’ll bring you some books, if you want,” Penny offers, pulling back to face him.

“Yeah?” he says, bemused and feeling strangely light. Hope, he realises. Took it long enough.

“Yeah. Any requests?”

Quentin thinks about it for a moment and decides, “Something with a happy ending.”

Penny laughs softly.

“Yeah, I think I can manage that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at tusklove on tumblr if you wanna yell with me!


End file.
